She came to us as a 4-year old ball of energy. Afraid of her own shadow, struggling to adapt to life outside her 3x2 cage at the race track, unable to climb stairs or avoid trying to walk through glass. She could run really, really fast in large circles, but she needed someone to teach her just about everything else about being a dog.
She was a quick learner. Within weeks she was fully adjusted to the life of a retired greyhound racer. Hours of time laying on her back, feet in the air punctuated by brief moments of hyperactivity. Over time, she learned to eat hard food. She learned to wade in the lake and play with other dogs at the park. She figured out that she could lay down next to my wife and share human food for dinner every night. I’d like to think that she began to forget about her previous life, where she was forced to spend 23 hours per day in her cage, fed terrible food and resigned to watch as her friends and fellow cratemates went missing. While she occasionally showed signs of her prior mistreatment, those subsided over time as well. She settled in as the best friend a family could ever ask for. She learned to sing. She learned to love long, slow walks through the woods and she even figured out that trying to catch squirrels was a thankless task.
We knew she wouldn’t live forever. We rued the day when we might have to think about life without her. She gave us so much, and asked for so little in return. What we didn’t know is that while her brain was able to forget the cruelty she faced at the race track, her body never was. Still coarsing through her veins were the remnants of all the poor food, the steroids, the hormones and the antibiotics that are so common among racers. And while her memories of the track subsided, the power of those chemicals did not. 6 years after retiring and landing in her forever home, those chemicals came back to haunt her in ways she can never understand. It started as a limp. Then a bump. Then a diagnosis: Osteosarcoma, a cancer common in greyhounds and attributed to the care they receive at tracks.
She’s still with us, for now. She’ll remain with us until the insidious cancer causes her significant pain or causes her frail bones to begin to break. Then we’ll be forced to make a decision that she’ can’t make on her own – a decision to end her pain.
Greyhound racing is cruel. The treatment these precious creatures face is unbearable to ponder. And the great irony is that even after they’ve found a new life in their forever home, the mistreatment from their original owners lingers on. The memory may subside, but the impact never does. Of course, the original owner doesn’t care. The original owner cared only that this precious dog could run fast. Once it could no longer do so, the original owner was indifferent to killing it or putting it out for adoption.
These animals deserve better. Francis deserved better. If it’s true that we can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals, then the people who profit from the mistreatment of these helpless animals have evil in their hearts. It’s my fervent hope that others will join me in helping put an end to this cruelty. Greyhounds deserve better. Even the slow ones.
Here’s hoping that Francis can remain with us long enough for one last walk in the woods; one more summer road trip with her head out the window; one more dip in the chilly waters of Lake Champlain.; and one more play date with all her friends. Then I’ll be able to look her in the eye when we say goodbye.
...and I know there are bigger problems in the world right now; people suffering far worse fates. But at the moment, this seems important to me. There's always an excuse to put off speaking for those that can't speak for themselves.